Amongst the Ashes | PAUSED/UNDER EDITING

TYLIN | CHAPTER FOUR

(no picture sowy)

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"HOW MUCH LONGER," Tylin asked with wonderment. He couldn't handle being trapped any longer in his cell. Over the course of Vilashen's battle, the walls aged with him. He'd grown familiar with the rats of the corner and the mold hanging from the ceiling. Especially the rats. "Do you think anyone will let us out?"

The brown rat he'd been talking to didn't answer him. He wasn't expecting him to, but when he'd been locked away and forgotten for twenty years, he tended to get lonely, and rats were the only thing close enough to socializing. Of course, there were the guards that'd visit him for no more than a few minutes that'd hand him his rations. They'd been crumbles close to nothing at all, but Tylin reasoned food was food and that he should be grateful for it.

The guards never spoke to him. It was like their lips had been stitched together and their puppeteer was toying with their invisible strings once every blue moon. Even a dose of fear could be spotted in their eyes when they visited, but Tylin knew not why.

He did not know why he'd been caged in the first place, for he'd done nothing wrong. He had begged them to let him out and tried to reason with their seemingly lost humanity. His pleas didn't do much for him, except get a reaction out of one guard that had spat in his face, calling him a "rotten pointy eared demon". He'd gathered that the men hated his kind, elves, and that his only crime had been being born into a world of hateful humans.

He found the situation ironic since he'd been adopted and raised by human parents, unbeknown of his heritage.

Tylin had studied his lineage ferociously once he'd found out the truth. His parents had told him before his twelfth birthday when curiosity had gotten the best of him. He wasn't angry or despaired, but rather curious as to what his kind was like. And seeing as his ears were pointed in comparison to the soft shape of human ears, he should've realized it sooner, but he was naïve then. He had not known of any elves in Vilashen or in the entire five realms. No one had. He'd only heard that there had been rumored sightings afar in the mountainous planes of Laesry. Whether it was a myth or not, he knew elves existed and wanted to believe with all his heart that they were hiding in plain sight or in faraway kingdoms because his refusal to acknowledge he was the only elf in the world blind sighted him to any known facts.

Hope and belief were dangerous things.

However, to Tylin, it didn't make sense that elves had been hiding since Vilashen was named home to what humans referred to as unnaturals. It wasn't an offensive name then, but now, humans used the word with spite on their tongues.

The king was an unnatural; a disguised dragon in a human body. Some humans accepted him as a ruler, while others sought to tear him down. Tylin, for one, supported the king before he had found out he was of elvish blood. He couldn't understand why anyone would want to overthrow the king, seeing as he presented himself with fairness and benevolence to all of Vilashen, but he guessed that some humans feared the king and his powers; they feared that he'd eventually take control over the five realms.

Tylin wasn't entirely convinced. The only command the king announced to the world at the beginning of his rule was to put an end to dragon slayings, and he had promised to welcome all to his home, regardless of the species. It would have seemed that he'd kept true to his word, only no elves came, or at least none that would be obvious to the public eye. It was a curious mystery.

Bewildered and entranced by the unnaturals, Tylin had gone to the sacred scrolls of Cesil and had barely found anything. All of what remained from elvish heritage were characteristic descriptions of spun bold hair, piercing green eyes, and pointy ears, along with a passed down rusty bow he'd spotted gathering dust in an enclosed viewing area of the library. Tylin had raked the pieces together and placed belief in the fact that elves must've been hunters of some sort.